The annual dog meat festival in China’s southwestern city of Yulin in Guangxi province opened on June 21, 2013 amid strong outcry online, with some calling for a boycott of the event.

Weeks before the “food carnival” in which thousands of dogs would be brutally slaughtered to be served in restaurants across the city, some animal rights activists and pet lovers even appealed to the United States White House petition page in a hope to stop the dog eating festivity. The move fell short, failing to get 100,000 signatures, which is the threshold of getting an official response.

Feasting on dog meat is a summer solstice tradition for many residents in this city of six million. Its popularity is best described by a regional proverb— “the smell of dog meat is so strong, even the god won't last for long” . Locals believe the delicacy gives eaters strength and energy.

Dogs to be cooked in Yulin ( Open Source)

Efforts to curb the tradition of consuming dog meat have been successful in the past. In 2011, an online campaign forced local government to do away with a 600-year-old tradition of dog meat festival in Jinhua city of China's eastern Zhejiang province.

However, little change seemed to be on the horizon for Yulin. In the city, an estimated 10,000 dogs are killed every year during the festival. That many are beaten to death, frayed and cooked on the spot has galvanized animal protection groups, which reject such a tradition as inhuman and unsafe.

Media reports also said many dogs are strays or abducted from pet owners, and they are usually stored in cramped conditions where diseases can easily spread among dogs.

While a large number of netizens took to the Internet to voice their disgust over the practice, many locals defended their custom and dog-eating culture.

“Eating dog meat is a eating habit in the society, it's not illegal and has nothing to do with morality”, a local was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua.

The intensive bickering online over dog-eating takes place against a backdrop of increasing pet ownership in the country. It also underscores a greater consciousness of animal rights among the general public.

Today, June, 21 2013, Yulin of Guangxi will hold the “Lizhi dog meat festival”. Massive numbers of dogs will be tortured and killed by then! They will become local cuisine…; What did we do? We did nothing [to stop it]? Civilization, morality, kindness, value of life, are they closer to us or more further away? But let us remember this–A massacre and bloody day and a sinful city!!!

Meiri Maogou Youyue mourned the dogs that would be killed for the tradition:

June 21, it’s today #Yulin Lizhi Dog meat festival opens today. Thousands of lives will be slaughtered brutally today! The Yulin city without love will be inundated by blood! Yulin’s “good reputation” will be heard across the globe! We will do nothing today but to light candles for thousands of dogs that are killed today.

I am determined not to eat dog meat, but I will never criticize those who do so, everyone has his or her preferences, as long as you don’t break the law, you can’t say [eating dog meat] is wrong, [I only] hope that the way of slaughtering dogs will be more humane.

The UK does NOT support the heinous mistreatment of these dogs or other animals which are abused in the name of tradition. If you choose to eat any kind of meat or use animal products then why the need for such inhumane treatment? What I have witnessed in these pictures has made me sick to the pit of my stomach. This is the 21st Century China, not the dark ages! The world will know about this cruelty and I only wish there could be mass worldwide boycott of your products until you make changes.

My parents lived through HITLER,but I didn’t realize that this type of brutality and inhumane mistreatment was still going on in the WORLD. To kill and eat your own babies and to brutally mistreat and kill these beautiful animals who are obviously more intelligent than you are. You are DAMN right we are exposing you to the WORLD. You VULTURES! We are on a roll and will be boycotting your countries. Have a GOOD TIME with HITLER in HELL FOR ETERNITY!!!!!! Because it will be your ASS CRYING AND SCREAMING while you’re FLESH IS FRYING…..

The power of the Internet has shone the spotlight on China, South Korea, Vietnam and other countries which eat dog and cat meat. We have seen how you traffic these animals around the globe and how you breed or steal them; how you transport them, bodies contorted and unable to move or breathe freely, without food, water or rest, crammed into tiny cages like sardines in a can; how you torture them to death for food; how you ignorantly and falsely believe that the more the animal suffers before death, the tastier and more nutritious the meat; how you hang them by the neck, beat them to death, or whilst still living, burn them with blowtorches to remove the fur; how you electrocute them and encourage your children to choose an animal to torture and eat; how you skin them alive and throw them, still living, into the cooking pot; how you do all of this in full view of other animals to increase their terror, and how, despite all of this barbarity, you still expect the civilised world to respect you.

Civilised people do not deliberately try to increase the suffering of animals reared for food, but instead everything possible should be done to keep all pain, whether physical, emotional or psychological, to a minimum. At the very least, animals must be dead before being cooked!

Until you stop this barbaric torture of dogs and cats in the meat trade, you will always be seen as ignorant, cruel and living in the Dark Ages. You cannot defend yourselves by playing the “tradition” or “culture” cards. Torture of animals has never been accepted as normal and it never will be.

I know that there are many humane Chinese and Asian people; that there are activists who try to educate the ignorant perpetrators of these crimes against animals, and that they make efforts to ban this dreadful torture. I hope they are successful, and that this unspeakable agony inflicted on dogs and cats ceases.